Ford Offers Its Workers PC's And Internet for $5 a Month

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: February 4, 2000

DETROIT, Feb. 3—
The Ford Motor Company said today that each of its 350,000 employees worldwide, from factory workers in India to car designers in Michigan, would be offered a high-speed desktop computer, a color printer and unlimited Internet access for just $5 a month.

Employees' families will be encouraged to use the equipment, made by the Hewlett-Packard Company, and will be given e-mail accounts. The Ford offer, which executives said was intended to promote computer literacy, includes color monitors, speakers, technical support and ample capacity for workers and their families to create their own Web sites.

Mark Margevicius, a senior research analyst at the Gartner Group, a computer consulting firm, said that Ford was the first big company to try to make home computers available to all its employees. ''I have not even heard of anything like this happening,'' he said.

Ford executives portrayed today's initiative as an example of corporate munificence and as a way to improve company communications with workers, but auto industry experts said that it could carry several benefits for the company. Ford has had the best labor relations in the domestic auto industry -- its last strike was in 1986 -- but morale has been damaged by its plans to spin off its auto parts division, Visteon Automotive Systems, later this year. Visteon workers will be included in today's program even after the two companies separate, Ford officials said.

Ford and other automakers have invested heavily in automation and need workers who are comfortable operating computers that control the equipment. Factory jobs like robot repair now require as much as a year of training, some of which could be done online at home.

Envious of the high stock market valuations of computer and Internet companies, Ford officials have begun a concerted effort in the last year to portray their company not as a stodgy manufacturer but as a maker of consumer products actively involved in electronic commerce. Recent initiatives include using the Internet to procure auto parts, promote new car models and keep track of automotive maintenance records.

Ford executives have long admired the way the Saturn division of General Motors uses its corporate image to sell cars and have tried for several years to project a more progressive image of their own. As part of this campaign, Ford already advertises that its automobiles tend to score the best on government crash tests, and that its sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks pollute far less than regulations allow.

Ford also has a history as a ground-breaking employer. Henry Ford, the company's founder and great-grandfather of its current chairman, William C. Ford Jr., infuriated other industrialists in 1913 when he doubled the wage for assembly-line workers to $5 each eight-hour day. But the move reduced training costs at a time when workers were so scarce in Detroit and turnover so high that only one in 10 Ford employees stayed for more than a few months.

Ford officials said they did not know how many workers would want the computers, but predicted that almost all would take them. Delivery of the Hewlett-Packard computers and ink-jet printers will start in the United States in April, and the price might be set lower than $5 a month for workers in lower-wage countries, said James Yost, Ford's chief information officer.

Ford will offer Internet home pages in 14 languages for employees and does not plan to pay for the program through online advertising, though there will be home page links to Ford Web sites. UUNet, a division of MCI WorldCom, will be the Internet service provider.

Nearly 190,000 of Ford's 350,000 employees live outside the United States, as the company builds cars in countries like Poland and India to sell to their growing middle classes.

Mr. Yost and Ford's vendors declined to estimate the cost of the program. Nick Grouf, the chairman and chief executive of PeoplePC, the company that will manage the program, said that for other clients, PeoplePC has distributed less-powerful personal computers with unlimited Internet access but without printers for $24.95 a month. Given the discount that Ford is offering, this suggests the company could spend close to $100 million a year if most of its employees participate.

Ford is earning record profits and has $23.6 billion in cash reserves.

The basic PC in the Ford program, the HP Pavilion, is powerful, with a 500-megahertz Intel Celeron chip. It has a 4.3-gigabyte hard disk, a CD-ROM drive, a 56K modem, speakers, a 15-inch color monitor and Microsoft software including word processing and spreadsheets.

Employees will be eligible for the computers, printers and Internet access even if they already have them at home. They can lease more-powerful models -- with Pentium III chips, laser printers and even DVD players for movies -- at deep discounts if they are not satisfied with the base model. Prices for upgrades have not been determined.

Hewlett-Packard expects at least 300,000 orders, which would equal 4 percent of its worldwide PC shipments last year.

PeoplePC will ship the computers and provide round-the-clock technical support by telephone, including toll-free lines in many countries. Ford will not monitor employees' Internet use or e-mail in any way, Mr. Yost said.

The program was discussed during Ford's negotiations in the fall with the United Automobile Workers union, and was backed by Jacques Nasser, Ford's chief executive. Ford is committed to the program for at least three years, after which it will review it, Mr. Yost said.

G.M. and DaimlerChrysler concluded their talks with the U.A.W. before the idea came up. Their spokesmen said today they would study Ford's initiative. Toyota, Nissan and Honda said they had no plans to follow Ford's example.

Ford factories in the United States already provide free computer training labs for all workers to surf the Internet. Mark Pudelek, a 34-year-old assembler of engine alternators in Rawsonville, Mich., said that he had gone online at the factory but would now get his first home PC for his wife and 5-year-old daughter.

''I think it's going to be a great learning tool for my daughter, for the ABC's, counting and all,'' he said.